Don’t Know Much About® Mythology (58 page)

What role did myth play in African villages?

It may take “a village to raise a child,”
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but what does it take to hold a village together? Just as the temple complexes of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the agoras of Greece, were the pulsing centers of those cultures, the African village was—and in many places, remains—the heartbeat of Africa. And the myths and stories of African tradition are the connective tissue that hold the village together.

In societies like ancient Africa, where there were no written records, myth played an important role in maintaining a sense of history and cohesion. Just as the bard provided the collective memory of the Greeks, Celts, and Norse, the African storyteller always helped unite the village with sacred stories. These storytellers weren’t mere entertainment, trotted out for a once-a-week religious service. Their performances, combining story and song, drumming and dancing, were an integral part of daily village life and helped to convey important messages about the value of family ties, the feats of famous ancestors, the heroes of the past, and the individual’s place in society. As folklorist Roger Abrahams explains in
African Folktales
, “In the village the question of the individual in the family and community arises constantly, as does the issue of initiative in a world that must stress the subordination of the individual will to the good of the group.”

The good of the group was often tied to the question of food. In a landscape where growing conditions were always challenging, the constant possibility of drought, crop failures, and food shortages was a persistent fear, and social cooperation and collective farming were crucial to survival. African myths and stories were both preoccupied with this theme, as Roger Abrahams notes. “Nothing strains the web of culture so much as the threat of starvation…. We see [that] through these tales. Bonds are repeatedly strained because someone steals food, or because children are neglected when crops fail. Therefore no theme is more important or receives more attention than the building of families and friendship ties to provide that strength which, even in the face of natural disaster or perilous human responses to it, ensures a community’s survival…. One realizes how great the achievement of family and community is, and how constantly that achievement must be recreated again.”

The importance of communal action is clear in a story about the trickster Hare told by the Ewe (of Ghana and Togo) that also appears in other versions in many African traditions. While just an amusing tale on the surface, it underscores the fundamental need for cooperation. When a drought dries up the earth, the animals assemble in a council and all agree to cut off a piece of their ears and extract the fat, which they will sell to buy a hoe to dig a well. All do as they promise except for Hare, the trickster, who reneges. The other animals are surprised, but still manage to buy the hoe and dig until they hit water. Along comes Hare, who first draws some water and then takes a bath, muddying the well. When the other animals realize that Hare has ruined their water, they hatch a plan that involves covering a small statue with “bird lime.” Hare comes along and speaks to this “dummy,” which, of course, does not respond. Angrily, Hare hits the statue and gets one paw stuck to it, then the other. Next, he kicks at the sticky statue, but only succeeds in getting both feet stuck as well. The other animals, watching from hiding, come out and give Hare a beating, before letting him go. From that day on, Hare never leaves the safety of the grass.
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Given the central importance of communal cooperation, something as seemingly simple as a “work song” takes on a vital role in African mythology. Sung in unison by laborers harvesting crops or hoeing fields, the work song was not just a pleasant diversion from otherwise dreary labor, but a fundamental, cohesive force in tribal life. These songs, still very much alive in Africa today, made their way from thousands of African villages to America for centuries, aboard slave ships, and found voice in the work songs of the plantation slaves as well as in the rhythmic songs of chain-gangs (brilliantly displayed in the opening scene of the film
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
). These, in turn, powerfully influenced American gospel, rhythm and blues, jazz, and, eventually, rock and roll and Motown. That’s just one reason this mythic tradition deserves some R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Is there an African Creation myth?

The Garden of Eden was in Mesopotamia. The Egyptian Creation emerged from the Nile’s waters. The Chinese believed that people came from the clay of China’s Yellow River. But surely, they all had it wrong. After all, humanity was born in Africa. So it would make complete sense that Africa’s Creation stories would be particularly significant.

But myth in a preliterate society can be tricky. Though very old, Africa’s myths were not collected or written down until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even then, they were recorded by missionaries or colonial administrators, who often had their own agendas. Perhaps this is why the Creator god Bumba is described as white. And why parallels with the Old Testament pop up in African Creation myths. These agendas acknowledged, there are still hundreds of different African stories about how the universe began and humans were created. While few complete narratives exist in a form that can be considered “authentic,” many brief tales survive, which contain some common characteristics.

Many stories, for instance, involve a cosmic egg that breaks open and lets out a primeval serpent, typically a python. The world and every living thing in it are made from the body of the snake, so common on the African continent. In many other world myths, snakes have often played some fascinating—and contradictory—roles. Dangerous yet intriguing, they shed their skins, seemingly able to take on new life, an idea found in countless stories, including
Gilgamesh
. Their phallic connection only adds to this view of snakes as a mystical life-force. On the other hand, they are silently deadly and are often the supreme symbol of disorder and evil, whether in the Bible or ancient Egypt, where the serpent Apep tries to kill the sun each night. But in African myth, the concept of snake as a life-force predominates. According to the Creation story of the Fon of Dahomey, the serpent Aido-Hwedo serves the Creator goddess Mawu, daughter of the older, remote Creator Nana-Buluku. The rivers of the world wind around like the serpent’s body, and the mountains are formed by great piles of the serpent’s excrement. Mawu makes the serpent lie down in the waters surrounding the earth in a perfect circle with his tail in his mouth—a widely shared symbol of eternity. Sometimes he shifts, which explains earthquakes. And someday, when he swallows his tail, the world will come to an end.

Another primordial snake in southern and central African myths is Chinawezi. Called “the mother of all things,” this female serpent shares the world with her husband, Nkuba, who sits up in the sky and waters the earth with the beneficial rain of his urine. Chinawezi rules the earth, and whenever the thunder rumbles in the sky, it is believed that she replies by making the rivers swell.

In many traditions, a supreme god begins the work of making the cosmos but then leaves others in charge, or leaves earth altogether in annoyance with human behavior. In still other Creation tales, the world already exists, and it is only the creation of humanity that is of interest. Some of these stories reflect the influence of Christian missionaries as the old stories were merged with the biblical tradition. The Efe of Zaire, for instance, have a story in which the female moon helps the supreme Creator make the first man, Baatsi, from clay covered with skin and filled with blood. When the Creator makes a female companion for Baatsi, the couple are instructed to make children but are warned not to eat from the “Tahu tree.” They obey, and for many years everyone lives an idyllic existence until they get old and tired, and simply go straight to heaven without dying. But later on, when a pregnant woman has a craving for Tahu fruit and convinces her husband to pick some for her, the Creator decides that men and women must suffer the punishment of death.

Another Eve-like story, from the Dinka of southern Sudan, is about Abuk, the first woman. In the beginning, the High God allows the first man and woman to plant a grain of millet each day. When Abuk greedily decides to plant more, she accidentally whacks the High God on the toe with her tool, making him so angry he retreats to the sky and cuts the rope that links heaven and earth. Since then, humans have had to work hard to grow food, and suffer sickness and death.

Some of the other most prominent African Creation accounts, which also come down in fragments, are included in the first part of this “Who’s Who” directory, which lists the god’s principal tribal association and location. The second part of the list includes the other most significant group of African gods, the “tricksters,” who are responsible for a mixture of good things and amusement, but more often bring mischief, chaos, and disaster.

WHO’S WHO OF AFRICAN DEITIES

Creator Gods

Amma
(the Dogon of Mali) In Mali (western Africa), the Dogon revere a single god, Amma, the chief creator of all things. In one of their Creation myths, Amma exists at the beginning of time as a great egg that contains all the elements of creation—fire, earth, water, and air. In a series of great explosions, these all combine to make life.
In another version, Amma is a divine potter who casts the sun, moon, and stars out of clay that he flings into the sky. When the heavens are complete, he forms a woman—earth—and produces a jackal monster and two serpentlike twins with her. The twins invent speech and cover the bare earth with vegetation. Amma then couples with the earth, producing another set of twins, who become the ancestors of the Dogon.

Bumba
(the Bushongo of the Congo) The chief Creator god of the Bushongo (central Africa), Bumba vomits the earth, sun, moon, and stars into existence. These are followed by the animals, from which all life descends. Described in some traditions as “white,” Bumba gives fire to a man named Kerikeri, who charges a high price for embers to make fires for cooking. The king’s daughter entices Kerikeri into marrying her, so she can learn the secret of fire from him. One night, she pretends to be cold and watches as Kerikeri builds the fire. After learning his secret, she deserts him. It is another story underscoring the widely shared African distaste for selfishness.
A similar Creation story of the Kuba of the rain forests of Zaire (central Africa) is about Mbombo, a spirit who, during the dark hours of the first day of Creation, has sharp pains in his stomach and vomits, producing the sun, moon, and stars. As the sun shines, the primordial water recedes, and the hills and plains of the earth are revealed. In a second convulsion, he sends forth a stream of vomit that produces the rest of Creation, including all of the animals and the first man and woman.

Cagn
(San of the Kalahari) The chief creator of the San (once called Bushmen) of the Kalahari Desert region in southern Africa, Cagn is a wizard of great power, whose magical strength resides in one of his teeth. A shape-shifter, he can assume the forms of different animals, including a praying mantis and an antelope. He also has a pair of sandals that can turn into attack dogs. At various times, Cagn is eaten by ants and by an ogre, but he always comes back to life when his bones rejoin.
The San have a myth about another creator,
Dxui
, who takes the form of a different flower or plant every day and becomes a man at night, until he creates all the plants and flowers that exist. Afterwards, Dxui becomes a fly, water, and a bird, until he is finally transformed into a lizard, which, the San believe, is the oldest creature of all.